Cloud Talk: #Cloud is a Delivery Paradigm, Not a Place or an Auto-Problem-Solver

Let’s be very honest. “Cloud” (when used in the context of Cloud Computing, of course) is a term used widely and freely at the moment. It would seem that many believe that “the Cloud” is a solver of all problems, we just shove our stuff “in the Cloud” and we’ll be set fair.

First up – it’s not like that.

Sure, the Cloud will provide benefit under certain circumstances, for certain workloads for certain types of organisation, but it’s definitely not a one-size-fits-all panacea for all the problems any organisation would ever have.

Secondly, moving to the Cloud, with the exception of some very specific workloads (such as messaging with Microsoft Exchange) is not a simple task. If you’re anything other than green or brown field, prepare for some challenges!

Finally, it agitates me (some of my posts here are born out of agitation as opposed an innate desire to share knowledge…) that many folks think of the Cloud as a “place”. It’s not. It’s a delivery paradigm.

If your service exhibits the characteristics of a Cloud solution (self-service, elastic, metered, device agnostic, shared provision) then it’s “in the Cloud” – geography is not a factor. You can build a Cloud in your existing datacentre if you choose (a.k.a. Private Cloud) and boom-pow you are in the Cloud.